Aksu Prefecture is located in mid-Western Xinjiang, China. It has an area of 131,161 km2 and 2.714 million inhabitants at the 2020 census whom 715,319 lived in the built-up (or metro) area made up of Aksu urban district. The name Aksu is Turkic for 'white water'. Aksu Prefecture has a 263.8 km long international boundary with Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Etymology

The name Aksu comes from the name of the Aksu River which is Turkic for 'white water'. The name is similar to that of the nearby Zhetysu region which means "seven rivers". The name of Aksu Prefecture's Onsu County (Wensu) means "ten water" in Uyghur and other Turkic languages, and 'Kizilsu' in Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture means 'red water'- all of these names consist of a descriptor followed by 'su' (river; water).

History

In 717 AD, the Arabs, guided by their Turgesh allies, besieged Buat-ɦuɑn (撥換, Aksu) and Dai-dʑiᴇk-dʑiᴇŋ (大石城, Uqturpan) in the Battle of Aksu. During the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, 214 Uyghur workers were sent to Jiujiang, Jiangxi.

Geography

The prefecture occupies the northwestern part of the Tarim Basin and the southern slopes of the Tian Shan. The southern part of the prefecture is within the Taklamakan desert. Agriculture is only possible in the areas irrigated by the Tarim River and its glacier-fed tributaries, the Aksu River and the Muzart River. Aksu Prefecture surrounds Aral, Xinjiang.

Administrative divisions

Aksu Prefecture is divided into 2 county-level cities and 8 counties:

Demographics

As of 2020, 2,051,412 (80.1%) of the 2,561,674 residents of the county were Uyghur, 475,323 (18.6%) were Han Chinese and 34,939 were from other ethnic groups. As of 1999, 75.0% of the population of Aksu (Aqsu, Akesu) Prefecture was Uyghur and 23.7% of the population was Han Chinese.